Cake pops for a 9 yr. olds birthday

Today I've got a couple photos of the birthday cake pops I made for my daughter's 9th birthday. I have never done cake pops before so it was a perfect reason to learn. I had planned to use half of the cake batter for the pops and the other half for a decorated cake that would hold the pops. Unfortunately the base cake was too thin to hold the cake pops and they had to be served separately. How do you serve your cake pops? I've seen some unique displays but I ran out of time and just brought them to the birthday party poked into my drying block.

For the ears on the cat I used chocolate chips and the ears on the dogs are made from chewy caramels. Noses were made from cut mini-M&Ms and shaped Starburst pieces. I got to use my edible pen for the eyes and faces.

So what kind of cake pops have you made? Do you have any tricks to share?

A birthday cake for a musical 70 yr. old

Last week I sent out another birthday cake and I now have some pics for you. This chocolate devil's food cake was filled and frosted with Italian buttercream. Sized for 40 people, the cake was pretty substantial.

The "birthday boy" has always been involved in music and theatre so his wife requested a musical theme. Music notes and piano keys were to be included but I was careful not to add too much mouth-staining black icing. The letters were done in white chocolate with a mould which made it possible for me fit all the wording in properly.

The characture portrait was adapted from an image of  Mr Magoo. I like how he looks as though he's singing happy birthday too. The technique I used for the portrait is called Frozen buttercream transfer which is a fantastic method for getting a very detailed or specific image onto the cake. I did use a different  type icing for it though and you can find the recipe here.

  Speaking of birthdays......today is my birthday! It's kind of a big one...as in the big 4-0. How did that happen? Stop by my shop and wish me a happy birthday and I will give you 20% off anything you purchase. This is valid for November 22nd only and it does not include shipping. Next year I think I will be 40 again.

New cake order Ombre style

Yesterday I was fortunate to send out another cake order. Yeah! This time it was for a basic 8" chocolate devil's food cake with Ombre-style piping. I used italian buttercream icing for the piping and realized that for the price I was charging I probably should've used a more basic buttercream. 

The customer asked for a bavarian cream filling after my quote so even though I should have charged more I really wanted to make it. I could have used pre-made bavarian cream to keep the cost down but I was going to get to learn something new. Have you ever had bavarian cream from scratch? OMG! The scratch bavarian cream with the chocolate cake and the italian buttercream was soooooo yummy together. I almost wish the customer hadn't come to get her cake.

As with all the cakes I do, I learn something that I need to remember for next time. I see plenty of things on this cake that I would like to fix but I KNOW this cake tasted amazing and I think I was able to make Bill's birthday that much more memorable.

A plane birthday cake for a 3 yr. old

Recently, as a way to make some extra money, I started offering my creative abilities in creating custom cakes. I've posted up signs and put up some Craigslist ads and I've  gotten a little bit of interest from people. The other day I was able to deliver a custom birthday cake for a 3yr. old. I can now add airplane cake to list of cakes I've created.

The client decided on a fondant covered chocolate cake. Because this was for a little boy I decided to go for a cartoon look and give the plane a happy face. Thanks to the help of a Google image search I was able to get some idea about how to construct the cake. Below are pictures of how I created my cake. 

I'm pretty happy with how the cake turned out and luckily for me I have another cake order coming up. Stay tuned for that one as I will be doing a frozen buttercream transfer for that one.

It's a wedding day

Encaustic painting: Susan Najarian

 Today the family is going to a wedding. My brother-in-law is getting married and we're getting out our fancy duds to help celebrate the big event.  I really should be getting ready instead of writing this because there's still nail polish to put on and hair to do.

I was asked if I would be willing to create a cake topper for the wedding and while I've always wanted to make one, I thought that I wouldn't have enough time thanks to our recent move. I knew I would have to do a couple trial pieces and I didn't want to rush a keepsake like that. Instead I referred the bride to Mumer Fremo's shop who has some really cute one-of-a-kind cake toppers. Aren't these dogs fantastic?

I'm really eager to see the wedding cake that will hold the cake topper. As you may know I love cake decorating and I love seeing a well decorated cake in person. I've only done one wedding cake myself but I have full respect for people who can create such beauty out of butter, sugar and flour.

What do you think of this pretty little example of a cake? I've noticed fluffy flowers and ruffly icing is the current trend right now. Beautiful.

Source: Style me pretty

A flower birthday cake for an eight yr. old

 Another year has passed and another birthday party is done for my oldest. That means I got to create another birthday cake. For this year's cake my daughter requested a flower again but this time she wanted a butterfly on top. I just used a cardboard template as a guide to cut from two circular 8" cakes as I didn't have a mold for the flower. For the butterfly I used instructions from my book Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack. I made numerous butterflies and they were super easy to make. I suggest using the Wilton candy melting wafers rather than just melted chocolate as I did for the brown. I couldn't get any blue wafers so I just colored some white ones with a touch of food coloring.

Another cake made to add to the collection.

I think if you made a whole bunch of these butterflies as toppers on cupcakes the display would be amazing. What do you think? Would flower cupcakes with butterflies not make a great display for a garden wedding?

Recent creating fun

So besides dipping my toes into the art fair market at the Steveston Salmon Festival, I've been busy trying out all sorts of ideas and projects. I'm currently trying to learn my Wacom tablet and Corel Paint Essentials and although I'm liking the results I'm getting, I still feel as though I'm fumbling around. I'll be asking for Corel Paint 12 for my birthday though as it looks amazing. Way over my head amazing.

I've also been starting some vision boards over at Pinterest. There are so many beautiful images that it's easy to lose and hour or two on the site. If you're on there you can see my boards here. I'm big on following craft and DIY boards. I found this great picture of a fruit salad bowl of a turtle made from a watermelon and I knew I had to try it out. Below is a picture of my version of the turtle. The instructions on the blog don't tell you that you need to use a strip of watermelon along the center for the head and tail but I figured it out.

I also did a couple birthday cakes recently. At the end of April I did a Great Valley cake for my niece who has a thing for dinosaurs. I made a "Butter Beer" cake in a slab form and used some chocolate cake that I had in the freezer in the shape of a cone for the volcano. This cake was really done on the fly but my niece was still really thrilled to get her dinosaur cake.

I also created something for my eldest' spring fundraiser cake walk this year. You had to know that I would jump at the chance to create a cake. This year's entry was "Hungry Man Dinner" which can be found in Hello, Cupcake!. I love the idea of cake disguised as savory food and this was so much fun. With the help of candies and great simple instructions I created these cupcakes that helped win my daughter an extra prize for the spring fair.

The third cake I did recently was for my daughters 5th birthday and we finally pinned her decision on a make-up bag. This one was from 50 Easy Party Cakes by Debbie Brown, my go-to book. I used a simple chocolate devil's food cake recipe and iced it with buttercream rather than covering it with fondant. I didn't really want to make marshmallow fondant for this cake as I need so little so I used fruit chewy candies for anything that needed modeling. It tasted better too.

So what do you think about my latest food creations? Which one is your favorite?

Mushroom Fairy Cottage Cake for a seven year old

I can't believe another year has past and I've created another 3-D birthday cake for one of my children. As I've said before, I really enjoy the challenge of cake decorating and I always learn something new with each one.
For this year's cake I created a mushroom cottage complete with fairies. This is the second toadstool I've done for my daughter. The first one you can see here was a large icecream cake. My then 2 yr. old enjoyed it very much... well the decorative sugar on it at least.
This year's cake was inspired by Debbie Brown's "50 Easy Party Cakes" and I followed the general instructions for it. Because most of the guests don't seem to like too much fondant, I decided to ice the cake with buttercream and use the fondant as accents.

I created the toadstool shape with the help of a giant cupcake mold and half of a Wilton sportsball mold. As always, I froze the cake before carving and putting on the crumb coat. Some people don't believe in freezing cake but I feel the large amounts of butter and sugar keep it perfectly for the short amount of time it sees the freezer. Once the crumb coat had set in the fridge (15 min.) I frosted and assembled the cake. My girls helped create the fondant fairies, the door and the paths.

I'm pretty happy with how smoothly this cake went and it was right in line with my current mushroom obsession. Stay tuned for another cake as my niece will be turning three soon. What will it be?

A Honey Beehive cake for a six yr. old

The time has flown by so fast and I've made another sculpture cakes for one of my daughters. The pick this time was a design from Debbie Brown's book 50 Easy Party Cakes. I thought the design was going to be pretty easy to pull off and it was until I had to drape the enormous and continuous piece of marshmallow fondant onto the cake. I found it a bit tricky to smooth out the fondant without it wrinkling and overlapping. Worried about creating tears, I decided it was best to live with my many imperfections.

Once the cake was covered I saw all the errors in my carving calculations and cursed a couple of times under my breath. It will still taste like cake, right? As always, the kids had a lot of fun creating the final touches like the bees and the flowers. I was pretty happy with how much control I let go of with this cake as I know from previous birthday cakes, the kids will be "helping" no matter what.

So once again, I have a renewed sense of admiration for professional cake decorators. Art in the form of sugar. Here are a couple pictures and links to some cake artists that I have been following. Aren't they impressive? They are my cake inspirations!

Alana Hodgson ©

  

Coco Cake ©